Torah Portion:	Terumah
Synagogue:	Elwood Shule (traditional, orthodox)
Walking time from home:	30 minutes
Reason for going:	Nostalgia / new rabbi
Kiddush:	Small but plentiful

This week was my birthday and as part of that, I decided to go to the shule where I had my Bar Mitzvah many years ago. Though my actual Barmi was delayed by a few weeks and was thus in mid-March, it still felt right to go back to Elwood for some nostalgia. It has been at least a year since I was there last, and in that time, the previous rabbi left and a new, young rabbi has started his tenure.

Though Elwood used to be a vibrant congregation in its heyday, that time was several decades ago. Since then, because of gentrification and other factors, most of the Jews have either died or moved away. The shule still functions because there is a committed core and a sizeable membership that turns up on festivals, but most weeks the crowd is quite small, and this was one such week. In the men’s section there were no more than 30, and in the ladies section, about a third of that. I heard that half a dozen or so of the regulars were away, but of the ones that were there, the vast majority were in their 60s or older.

In fact, two of the older members (one in his late 80s) came up to me and told me that he remembered me from when I was a regular at the shule during the months leading up to and immediately after my Bar Mitzvah. And while most of the membership has changed, the building still looks the same, inside and out, so it felt very nostalgic to be in the sanctuary, especially when I remembered the times we used to come to this shule as a family for the High Holydays.

The fact that the congregation was small and older also made it feel quite heymish – welcoming and comforting, because everyone seemed to know each other, more so than in most other shules. And although the new rabbi is young, Chabad and not from this community, he too seemed familiar with the regular congregants and made me feel comfortable as well. A young rabbi in a community like that gives me hope, and although there are not too many other young members, at least there is some youth in a sanctuary that has seen so much. Decades ago Elwood was the shule that many Holocaust survivors attended, in part because Rabbi Chaim Gutnick – who was there for over 45 years – was known as the rabbi of the survivors.  He is long gone and so are most of them, but the shule is still a welcoming place, which is good to see. At the sit down kiddush, the rabbi came around to every table, whilst the regulars all had lengthy, familial conversations, mostly about their afternoon schedules, their dogs and recipes for both their families and their dogs.

It is possible that the topic of recipes was discussed because the portion of the week is about gifts and tithings (including food) related to the building of the mobile sanctuary that was to be used whilst the Children of Israel were in the desert. There were many instructions given, and many rules, but ultimately it was about ensuring that the tabernacle was functional, mobile and an appropriate home away from home for the tablets brought down by Moses. In many ways, those rules became a precursor for the traditions we have today regarding synagogues and their construction, and on a week that such rules were read in the Torah, it was quite appropriate for me to be in the synagogue where I was first called to read from the Torah on my Bar Mitzvah.

I don’t know when I’ll be back to Elwood shule, and after the current generation move on, I don’t know how long Elwood shule will even remain functional and sustainable. But I do know that it will always hold a meaningful and nostalgic place in my heart, and it was great to be there again, even if only for one Shabbat morning.